


I'm Leaving in the Morning

by ekopi



Category: Life as a House
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:35:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekopi/pseuds/ekopi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George Monroe never spends a summer with his son. Warnings for language and drug use.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Leaving in the Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



It doesn't much matter that George Monroe has terminal cancer when he's hit by a car. The driver of the silver-gold-tan-ugly  Buick drops his coffee and forgets to look at the man stepping out into the street with a model house and model trees and a perfectly-manicured model lawn. George forgets to look both ways when the dizziness builds up behind his eyes and he never sees the shattering arc of that little white house and its little green trees and the lawn spread all over the pavement. 

Life's a bitch and then it kills you multiple  fucking times over, seems to be the general lesson Sam figures, when he hears. His mom is sitting on the floor in the kitchen, right foot twisted and stuck under the fridge. Sam gets out as fast as he can, before he has to hug someone, and goes to find Corey or Jo or Matt, just someone whose hand isn't pressed, shaking, against her mouth. 

.  


He ends up finding Paul and smoking a lot. He doesn't know him that well but the guy's parents don't often bother to come home and he's generous with his stash. He doesn't make fun of Sam's eyeliner, at least, but he talks a lot about things he'll never do, how he'll start a band and get famous - he plays the drums okay and the last time his older brother was in town he promised to teach him guitar - or get lost hitchhiking across the states and just get out and away, because everyone else in the world is trying to get to Southern California but not him. They can have it, the lot of them.

Other people show up and they're in bands too. They read  Kerouac too. Sam isn't and hasn't, so he focuses on the way air and smoke go in and out of his lungs, in and out. The short-piled carpet is rough on his fingers as he traces an old burn mark until someone starts passing around something else and he swallows the pill dry, without asking. 

People come and go, and once everybody is properly wasted there's a general movement towards someone else's house where there are apparently more girls and definitely more alcohol. Sam makes a fool of himself, stumbling into a cute girl and spilling cheap beer on her shirt. He can't remember her name to properly apologize. It's even worse when she reaches out to steady him and he grabs her arm, her skin warm under soft fabric. He can feel the steady beat of her pulse in the dip of her elbow but he kind of wants to hug her, just to make sure. She looks like she might ask if he's okay, and he's not, so he just vomits on her shoes and hopes she won't bother.

He wakes up the next afternoon in someone else's bed in someone else's house, alone and cotton-mouthed. When he goes to pee he finds someone's written "QUEER" backwards on his forehead, so he can read it perfectly in the mirror.

.

He moves in with Corey but they smoke up the first night before they unpack, so they mostly live out of boxes and suitcases. It's like their first place by themselves, and Sam expects something to change. Instead, the cable guy eyes his  labret , and ends up staring at Sam's mouth while explaining which channels they'll get with the family package.When Corey slides up behind him and hooks two fingers in Sam's belt loop the man fumbles the battery for the remote, goes red to the roots of his thinning hair and  stutteringly explains where the power button is. 

Corey listens, grinning, "Did you see that, honey? The power button?" 

Sam steps on his foot. "Anything else? Or can you go now?"

He doesn't mean it quite like that, but the man leaves in such a hurry he forgets his hat. Corey grabs it and wrinkles his nose at the sweat stains, "Dude, we should make sure he gets this back. Maybe you should call and ask for Earl. Leave your number." The last part is accompanied by a stoned attempt at eyebrow-wiggling and a harsh, barking giggle. Corey thinks this is  hilarious .

"You  asshole , " Sam tries to smack him but Corey jerks back and grins wider. "He thought we were."

Corey doubles over laughing, starts coughing and grabs a, now warm, half-empty can of beer someone  ashed into. It only makes him laugh harder.

.

Corey does shots off a girl's stomach and gets her phone number, ends up staying over at her place more often than not. Sam figures that getting drunk and high alone isn't that much more pitiful than waiting around for his loser best friend, so he does. He can feel his pulse but he can't get to it, and his arms are scraped raw and scabbing over by the time Corey finds him two days later, dry heaving in the bathtub. 

Corey's pressing a toe through his worn, black Chucks and doesn't look at him. "Dude, you didn't tell me your dad died."

.

Corey keeps giving him these concerned looks and he's no one's burden, alright. He doesn't need any more  fucking parents. Corey might call his mom, so he takes off but he thinks better of it, calls Josh. Before he knows it he's outside a gas station convenience store and some guy in a suit and an  Audi is staring at him. Sam raises an eyebrow, asks the guy what he's got.

.

When his palms are sweating and he's coming down just this side of too soon, before he's stuffed the crumpled bills into his pocket but after breathing deeply through his nose to swallow the rising bile, there are disjointed flashes of a sunny day at the beach. Of hands that were strong and warm and safe. 

.

Someone's shaking him awake, small hands and a strong pulse. He's lying face down in George Monroe's overgrown garden. He can hear the ocean.

"I thought I saw your dad this morning. Could have sworn." She's smiling with a sad little twist at the end. She's offering him a hand, "You look like you could use a shower."


End file.
